Lincoln DID bring home the bacon

The Arkansas Leader is having none of the “fake piety” — and hypocrisy — with which the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorialists and other Republican symps are blasting U.S.Sen. Blanche Lincoln for not bringing home more pork for Arkansas, a la Ben Nelson, even as they castigate the pork barreling.

We don’t know what will finally come out of the conference between the two houses this winter, but the central provisions of both the Senate and House bills are a godsend to Arkansas. No state is apt to have the net cash inflow as Arkansas when the provisions are fully implemented.

… But the biggest bonanza is Medicaid. The Senate bill would extend Medicaid insurance to adults up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line and the House bill up to 150 percent. Only Alabama comes even close to realizing the enormous benefit that Arkansas will see from the Medicaid expansion.

…. By week’s end, states like California, Wisconsin and New Jersey were complaining that they were not happy sending their tax dollars to states like Arkansas that had done so little for the poor themselves.

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… Whatever passes this winter — and something assuredly will — in three or four years lots of cash will be sloshing through the medical institutions in this state and that will help us all, from the neediest to the richest.

Senator Lincoln, Senator Pryor and the two Democratic congressmen who have joined the cause cannot claim personal credit, but they need to offer no apologies either.